Peru Rocked By Blackout, Explosion Of Seven Bombs

January 16, 1987|United Press International

LIMA, Peru -- A power blackout affected about 10 million residents living along a 600-mile stretch of Peru`s Pacific Coast late Thursday, and seven dynamite bombs exploded in the capital, radio reports said.

Police blamed the explosions on leftist rebels, but it was unclear whether the blackout and the bombing attacks were related. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Power was lost in an area stretching from the northern city of Chiclayo 600 miles south to the city of Ica, leaving at least half the nation`s 20 million people in the dark. Lima, the capital, also was affected by the outage.

Earlier Thursday, three suspected rebels carrying two packages of dynamite were shot by police in Lima and were taken to a hospital for treatment, local radio stations reported.

The radio reports said suspected rebels threw dynamite bombs at four different banks in Lima, and two explosions also occurred near a television station, damaging four vehicles.

Suspected rebels also threw dynamite at a vehicle parked outside the National Prisons Bureau, damaging the automobile and cracking windows and doors in the building.

The radio reports said police also dismantled a bomb inside a vehicle near the bureau of prisons.

Two fires broke out in Lima, including a five-alarm blaze at a factory that produces synthetic fibers. Witnesses said the fire near the Rayon fiber plant erupted after they heard explosions.

Flames shot 30 feet high as firefighters fought to control the blaze at the fiber factory in the industrial sector of the capital.

Metropolitan Lima has been under a nightly curfew for nearly one year because of frequent acts of urban terrorism.

The Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement began a campaign of violence against the government in 1981, bombing electric power plants, government buildings, bridges and other public property.